


Florentine

by shinychimera, Yeomanrand



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF!John, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: holmestice, Gen, Injury, Missed Chances, POV Male Character, POV Sherlock Holmes, POV Third Person, Pre-Canon, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:11:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many different universes where Lestrade regrets introducing Sherlock to the idea of fighting crime. This is one of them.</p><p> </p><p><span class="u">Teaser</span><br/><i>He pulls his shirt cuffs down as far over his hands as they'll go and climbs over the parapet onto the straight ladder — it will drop him deeper into the alley than the other man, cutting off his escape. Taking a deep breath, Sherlock grips the ladder rails with palms and insteps and slides down in an exhilarating controlled fall. The cuffs, and probably the whole tuxedo, are going to be a complete write-off, but it hardly matters. He whips around to one side of the ladder as soon as he hits the ground; the sandy-haired man in the jumper stares, mouth agape (not an accomplice), and the murderer charges across the alley.</i> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Florentine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ykyapril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ykyapril/gifts).



* * *

_Oh yes, I want to do_ this _with the rest of my life_ , Sherlock Holmes thinks gleefully, sprinting across the National Antiques Museum rooftop in pursuit of a murderer.

Beneath a washed-out watercolour dawn, the fugitive's tight black clothes and balaclava stand out, no longer cloaking him in a slice of darkness inside the Medici exhibit. Sherlock had been right about where the thief would strike next, and the cranky security guard left unconscious in the stairwell during last night's "Renaissance in Florence" gala could thank Sherlock that he wasn't dead like the two from the previous burglaries.

Heart springing with the exertion of the run, Sherlock strips off his bow-tie and drops it behind him. _Investigator? No. Detective? Too official._ **Y-O-U** , he thumb-types by feel on the BlackBerry clutched in his hand. _Freelance detective. Volunteer detective. Consulting detective._

The thief flings a brief cold look over his shoulder, but doesn't slacken his pace toward the fire ladder, nor does he strip the balaclava off — he obviously plans to head north, deeper down the shadowed alley below, rather than south toward Shaftesbury Avenue. 

Sherlock grins, accelerating in a line perpendicular to the edge of the roof rather than pursuing the thief directly. **W-E-R-E** , Sherlock manages to add before the man disappears down the ladder, and another **W-** before he launches himself across the narrow gap onto the roof of the shopping centre next door. A split-second glimpse of two pairs of eyes, looking up at him in shock; and his dress shoes really weren't made for this sort of landing.

 _Need to find something better for running_ , he thinks, straightening and typing **R-O-N-G** and hurrying to this building's ladder, while glancing over the edge at the two suspects — the thief, making his zig-zag spiral down the fire escape opposite, and a short man (possibly an accomplice) in a beige jumper at the back entrance of the Criterion café. **I-N P-U-R-S-T** , Sherlock finishes typing, sends the text to Lestrade, and tucks the device in his cummerbund.

He pulls his shirt cuffs down as far over his hands as they'll go and climbs over the parapet onto the straight ladder — no zig-zags for him, and it will drop him deeper into the alley than the other man, cutting off his escape. Taking a deep breath, Sherlock grips the ladder rails with palms and insteps and slides down in an exhilarating controlled fall. The cuffs, and probably the whole tuxedo, are going to be a complete write-off, but it hardly matters. He whips around to one side of the ladder as soon as he hits the ground; the sandy-haired man in the jumper stares, mouth agape (not an accomplice), and the thief charges across the alley.

Sherlock gets one glimpse of challenging brown eyes behind the mask before a hard punch to his chest forces the air from his lungs, driving him back against the wall. His BlackBerry chirps with an arriving message, the third man's yellow takeaway cup hits the ground, and the thief turns and runs, but one painful blow is hardly going to stop Sherlock from pursuing—

"Oh, _Christ_ ," the man in the jumper says, stepping forward, pressing hard on Sherlock's chest, pinning him in place against the wall. Sherlock grunts angrily, trying to move, or at least get a good look at the stolen trophy glinting in the villain's hand as he disappears.

"Let me _go_ ," Sherlock demands, fighting light-headedness.

" _Really_ not an option," the man says. Sherlock looks back at him: sees a fan of bright arterial blood stippling the beige wool. Blinking, Sherlock registers the pain in his chest intensifying instead of fading, and still can't accept the obvious conclusion until his knees buckle.

The man eases Sherlock down until he's sitting against the wall, crouching with him and keeping one hand pressed tightly to Sherlock's chest. With the other, he fishes a phone from his pocket, hits a few buttons and speaks words into it that are not quite intelligible. 

Sherlock stares into watercolour grey-blue-hazel eyes, a lightly sun-lined face roughened by a day's stubble and flecked with red. He looks down at the crisp white shirt spoiled by a spreading bib of blood, at fingers pressed against — no, _into_ — the wide gash between his ribs. 

He looks up again. "Are you...are you holding my heart together?"

"Essentially. But it's all right. I'm a doctor," the man says, calm and genial as if he does this every day, despite the sweat breaking out across his brow. "Hang tight; I'm on the line with 999."

Sherlock takes a slow-motion breath, paying closer attention than ever before to his body's sensations: heart beating, lungs filling, head pressed against the hard wall behind him. And he's storing away the information the doctor dictates to the dispatcher on the other end of his mobile — he knows he'll want to dissect this remarkable experience later.

The smell of rich coffee — black, no sugar — fills the air, almost obliterates the faint scent of garbage and rot that clings even to a well-appointed alley like this one.

The doctor sets the phone on the ground next to him. "Hey. Stay with me, all right?"

"I'm not going anywhere." Sherlock recognises the effects of shock: falling blood pressure, rivulets of sweat. He's annoyed he can't just shrug them aside the same way he can force himself to concentrate; too many things left to do here. He lifts a hand to fumble at his cummerbund.

"No, I suppose you're not." The doctor shifts his feet under him slightly, reaches out with his free hand to pull Sherlock's eyelids gently upward. Checking pupillary response. A baseline, if Sherlock starts going hypoxic. "That was absolutely mental. Thought I'd stumbled on a film set."

Sherlock's eyes narrow against the touch, the irrelevancy; he lets his hand, holding the BlackBerry, fall back against his thigh. Doesn't bother trying to read the return text, which is sure to be some question Lestrade can answer for himself. Hits reply. 

"Where did he go?" Sherlock growls. **N-R-T-H** , he types, slowly.

"Who...? _Oh_." He looks down the alley, eyes clear and sharp, but they drift up and to the right: creating a desired image rather than reconstructing a true one. _Useless_. Sherlock exhales harshly, and the man's attention jerks back to him, gaze dropping to the injury and rising back to his face.

"Through the graffitied door, on the left."

"You're sure?" Sherlock blinks at the specificity, the surety in the man's voice. Except — his eyes flick down to the locked elbow holding him against the wall. "Are you left-handed?"

The doctor's breath catches, brows drawing together. Reconstructing an image after all. "Yes. What—"

"Good," Sherlock cuts him off, types **T-H-R-U**. "It makes a difference. How tall are you?" **B-U-R-B-R-Y-S**.

"I — five six." Thoroughly bewildered, but humouring the injured is probably one of those skills they teach in medical school. "And about eleven stone at last weigh-in. Some reason you need my particulars?"

"Verifying his," he says. **5-F-7 1-0-S-T** , and the effort of typing — even abbreviating the information to the limit of comprehensibility — is adding to the sweat that's soaking through the back of his jacket, cold counterpoint to the sticky warmth on his front. **B-R-N** , he adds. "Not...'mental', by the way."

 **E-Y-S**. Sherlock pauses, blinks repeatedly. _What else_?

"No? There's sense to not calling the police? To chasing him across the rooftops yourself?"

Sherlock bares his teeth a little. "Perfectly...logical, every step of the way. Except, perhaps," he hesitates, a wave of pain crashing over him, "not taking into account what he'd stolen."

His mental image of the thief is wavering, but there has to be something.... _Ah_. **G-U-C-I**.

A curious tilt of the head. "Which was?"

 **S-H-U**. "Cinquedea." Puzzled brows contract over colour-shifting eyes; Sherlock starts to snort but exhales slowly instead. "Ornate dagger. Traditionally 'five fingers' wide. Favourite of the obnoxious and...fashionable condottieri."

"And here we are." A little shake of the head. 

Sherlock sends the painstakingly typed text, lets his fingers relax around the mobile. Gazes at the doctor, wreathed in brightening sky; his gentle concentration when he sets his fingertips against Sherlock's throat.

"How...does it feel?"

"Still going strong. You're doing well." _As can be expected_ , he doesn't add because he doesn't need to.

"No...my heart. What...does it feel like?"

The doctor just stares at him for a moment, lips slightly parted, eyebrows lifting together in some strange sad version of incredulity.

He takes a deep breath. "Smooth. A bit rubbery. Warmer and more active than other hearts I've handled. There's some...sucking, when the muscle contracts."

 _Fascinating_ , Sherlock thinks, but the voiceless fricative emerges without ever becoming a word. The pavement is gritty and damp, cold seeping through the seat of his trousers. 

"Oi." A flare of adrenaline widens the doctor's eyes, sends the pulse skipping in his throat, but his voice stays steady. Reassuring, though he himself is anything but confident. "C'mon, you tosser, you're not meant to be going anywhere. Positively not allowed. Because there's no point to telling the fantastic story of the time I put my finger in someone's beating heart, like the boy and the dike, if I have to end it with 'but he died.'"

Sherlock smiles, finds insouciance is a fine catalyst for extending the dregs of his willpower. "No intention...of dying. Like...to tell stories? Do you?"

"Yeah." A false grimace of smile, an abortive twitch of the shoulders; a muted shrug. "The good ones are always worth a pint or two."

"Should stay. We might make a decent...crime fighting team. Lots...of stories."

"Just a bit longer, mate. Hang on." Some of the carefully-maintained calm is starting to slip; his voice takes on a tremor. 

"S'what I want to do..." Sherlock whispers; the doctor shifts close, pressing harder, watercolour eyes shifting from blue to grey as his chin tilts upwards. The faint wail of sirens is all too clear as the rush of blood fades from Sherlock's ears. "...with the rest of my life...."

❧

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to [eldritchhorrors](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchhorrors) for the quick turn-around beta, [sangueuk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sangueuk) for Britpicking and polish, and to [ykyapril](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ykyapril) for the prompt.
> 
> For the 2012 Holmestice summer exchange, prompt: _...something with an unhappy ending, [m]aybe a sad fic with a bit of hope? Um, but yeah, I’d like something with massive amounts of angst. [...]_
> 
> _Also, case!fic is appreciated too! [...] BAMF-ness is also hugely appreciated!_


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